President Obama is moving to shut down the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See and move it to the larger American Embassy in Italy. While the U.S. claims that this is a security measure in light of the Benghazi attack in 2012, several former ambassadors to the Holy See, view it as a slap in the face to the Vatican.
Calling it a “massive downgrade of U.S.-Vatican ties,” former U.S. Ambassador James Nicholson said, “It’s turning this embassy into a stepchild of the embassy to Italy. The Holy See is a pivot point for international affairs and a major listening post for the United States, and … [it’s] an insult to American Catholics and to the Vatican.” He also called the move a “smokescreen,” saying that the current facility has “state of the art” security. He is joined in his views by former envoys Francis Rooney, Mary Ann Glendon, Raymond Flynn and Thomas Melady.
Mr. Flynn accused the administration of “hostility” toward the Catholic Church. “It’s not just those who bomb churches and kill Catholics in the Middle East who are our antagonists, but it’s also those who restrict our religious freedoms and want to close down our embassy to the Holy See,” he said. “[There’s no] diplomatic or political benefit to the United States” from the relocation at all…”
There are two things that should be noted about the plan to move the embassy. The obvious tension between the American government and the Vatican appears to have reached a boiling point. This is a move against history and prophecy, which says that the United States and the Vatican will be strongly linked together. See Revelation 13:11-18. This could set up a reaction to swing the other way and eventually push the United States much closer to the Vatican than it has been. In any case, the angels are holding back the winds of strife in some ways.
“And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.” Revelation 7:1-3